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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28751298">Still Crazy in an Italian Restaurant</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/amythis/pseuds/amythis'>amythis</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Lenny Is a Rock Star [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Laverne &amp; Shirley (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 03:48:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,640</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28751298</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/amythis/pseuds/amythis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Shirley has another reunion right after <i>My Old School</i>.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Richie Cunningham/Shirley Feeney</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Lenny Is a Rock Star [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1875079</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Lenny is a Rockstar 'Verse</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>"I met my old lover<br/>On the street last night<br/>She seemed so glad to see me<br/>I just smiled"</p><div class="center">
  <p>—Paul Simon</p>
</div><br/>"We lost touch long ago<br/>You lost weight, I did not know<br/>You could ever look so nice after<br/>So much time"<br/><div class="center">
  <p>—Billy Joel</p>
</div>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He was a grown man, old enough to run for president, as his kid sister had recently teased him.  But he couldn't help yelling at the very pretty woman in front of his car.</p><p>"Shirley? Shirley Feeney?" Her married name escaped him at the moment, and that wasn't who she was to him.</p><p>She stopped halfway across the crosswalk and peered into his '74 red Pontiac Eldorado convertible.  "Richie? Richie Cunningham?"</p><p>The car behind him honked. He hadn't noticed that the lights had changed.</p><p>She hesitated and then came around and hopped into the front passenger seat, as if she were a teenager in a poodle skirt, rather than a young matron in a pink polyester pantsuit.</p><p>"Uh, can I give you a lift somewhere?" he asked, taking his foot off the brake.</p><p>"No, my hotel is close by.  I was just going for a walk to clear my head."</p><p>He nodded his own now unclear head. "Yeah, I'm just driving around."</p><p>He tried to focus on his driving, until they simultaneously blurted out, "What are you doing in town?" Then they both laughed and he said, "You first."</p><p>"My twentieth-year high school reunion was tonight.  Can you believe it?"</p><p>He could and he couldn't. Nineteen fifty-six was another world, but seeing her rolled back time.  What he said was "How was it?"</p><p>"Interesting as always. What brings you back to Milwaukee?"</p><p>"Joanie had a baby."</p><p>"Congratulations!"</p><p>"Thank you. It's her fifth."</p><p>"Fifth? Oh my!"</p><p>He shrugged. "Joanie loves Chachi."</p><p>"Apparently."</p><p>They both chuckled.</p><p>He was driving aimlessly, as he had been before she crossed his path. He knew he needed to take her someplace where they could really talk and catch up.  A bar would be too noisy and crowded.  He couldn't suggest they go to her hotel, and he couldn't ask her back to his old house.</p><p>"Hey, I know it's late, but would you like to get a bite to eat?"</p><p>"That would be nice, thank you."</p><p>"There's a place I always try to go to when I'm in town. I think you'll like it."</p><p>"What's it called?"</p><p>"Let me surprise you."</p><p>"You always did."</p><p>He wasn't sure how she meant that. <span class="u">She</span> had often surprised <span class="u">him</span> in the old days. Perhaps she was thinking of his desperate proposal almost fifteen years ago, but he had the feeling this had to do with a comparatively recent surprise.</p><p>His destination wasn't far and it only took a couple quick golden-oldies on the radio before she exclaimed, "This is my old neighborhood!"</p><p>He nodded and turned onto Knapp Street.  She peered around, absorbing details.  Although it sounded like she hadn't been back in years, she seemed to have an architectural historian's eye for what had and hadn't changed.</p><p>And then, as he was heading towards a parking space, she exclaimed, "The Spaghetti Bowl!" and actually giggled.</p><p>He couldn't help grinning. "They kept part of the old name, even though it's more of a pasta-focused restaurant now."</p><p>"Oh, Richard, it's just perfect!"</p><p>There was something about the way she said the formal version of his name that got to him, even after all these years. When he was a naïve teenager, it made him feel like a man and a gentleman. He had regarded her with an unusual mixture, very unusual for the Fifties, of lust and respect. And he thought he knew what she meant by perfect. He was taking her back to one of the places of her youth, but it had been changed and modernized, as they had.</p><p>He parked the car and they got out. He wanted to take her arm, but he reminded himself that she was, according to Fonzie, a women's libber, and this wasn't a date. It was two old friends getting reacquainted.
</p><p>But his parents' training kicked in and he held the door open for her before he could stop himself.</p><p>Shirley beamed at him, showing off the dimples in her still unlined face. "You always had such lovely manners, Richie."</p><p>He liked how she said that, too, and he was definitely going to pull out her chair for her.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>"And we talked about some old times<br/>And we drank ourselves some beers"</p><div class="center">
  <p>—Paul Simon</p>
</div><br/>"Cold beer"<div class="center">
  <p>—Billy Joel</p>
</div>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"A bottle of white? A bottle of red?  Perhaps a bottle of rosé instead?"</p><p>For a moment, Richie looked like the high school senior she'd offered much less expensive wine to half his lifetime ago. Then he smoothly asked, "What would you recommend?"</p><p>"It all depends upon your appetite."</p><p>The waiter didn't say it suggestively, but Richie blushed in that easy way that some redheads have. He'd always been more of a strawberry blond, not a true carrottop like his friend Ralph Malph. He was just starting to go gray, and his hairline was receding a little. But his hair was longer than in the old days, not a fluffy cloud like Lenny's tonight, more about the length of Governor Carter's son Chip.</p><p>She stopped studying his appearance as she realized that the waiter was looking at her expectantly. "Perhaps we should figure out what we're going to eat so that we can figure out what wine goes with it?"</p><p>"Or we could just get a couple bottles of beer," Richie joked.</p><p>Actually, that sounded perfect. "Shotz please."</p><p>The waiter took it in stride, although he was probably less used to that order than Mr. DeFazio once was. Shirley had taken a lot of beer orders herself here, when she and Laverne had filled in as waitresses. Shirley had preferred the cuter uniforms at Cowboy Bill's, although the food wasn't as good and she was drifting away from junk food by then. They never served beer or wine though, just Coyote Sodys (with that spelling).</p><p>"The caps are easier to take off now," Richie observed.</p><p>She looked at him in confusion. Neither uniform had included a cap. Maybe he was thinking of the original carhop uniform at Arnold's.</p><p>He made a twisting gesture with one hand. "Since automation."</p><p>"Oh, yes, the Shotz bottle caps."</p><p>The waiter brought them two bottles, chilled.  They murmured their thanks. "Have you decided on your entrées yet?"</p><p>"Um, not yet," Richie said.</p><p>Shirley said, "May we please have garlic bread?"</p><p>"Of course."</p><p>After the waiter left again, Richie twisted off the cap of his bottle. "See?"</p><p>"Or maybe you're just stronger than when you were a boy."</p><p>He blushed yet again. He was still so boyish after all this time, despite the graying temples and stronger hands. She wondered if she should say something about all the writing he did, but she felt like they weren't ready for that part of the conversation yet. Maybe after the beer.</p><p>"Do you miss it?"</p><p>"Hm?" she said, thinking about his hands again, and how he'd once asked for hers.</p><p>"The brewery."</p><p>"No, not the work.  The people sometimes, and being young."</p><p>He nodded. "Being back in Milwaukee, I feel old and young at the same time, you know?"</p><p>She knew. "But don't you live in Chicago now?  That's not that far."</p><p>"Yeah, but there's always an adjustment when I visit my family. I mean my parents and Joanie and Chachi and their kids."</p><p>She had heard from Fonzie that Lori Beth got the kids in the divorce and moved to Kenosha. She wasn't sure if it was time for that talk either.  So she said, "I live in Annandale these days.  Well, the past eight years."</p><p>"With your sister-in-law, right?"</p><p>Fonzie apparently was keeping Richie somewhat up to date as well. "Yes, and her two children. And my own son of course."</p><p>"I was sorry to hear about your husband."</p><p>She never knew what to say to that.  She'd loved, married, and had a baby with Walter Meeney, but she hadn't known him as well as the half dozen men she'd had sex with as a widow.  And it wasn't like it was a recent loss, although she supposed there were women who would've still been mourning. And for poor Richie to say it!  "Thank you.  Um, I was sorry to hear about Lori Beth."</p><p>"Yeah, well." He took a sip of beer.</p><p>She easily took off the cap on her own bottle.  "I see what you mean."</p><p>He smiled again. "Yeah, but you're an expert."</p><p>"I haven't been a bottle-capper in eleven years."</p><p>"Right, but you obviously still have the manual dexterity. And you're a doctor now."</p><p>"Well, yes." She took a sip of beer.</p><p>"You're an amazing woman, you know that?"</p><p>"Oh, pshaw, lots of women can twist a bottle cap. You should've seen Laverne back in her glory days."</p><p>"No, for you to rebuild your life, with a little baby.  And now you're a veterinarian!"</p><p>"Well, I had help and support from Jeanie, Walter's sister."</p><p>Unlike most of her friends, he didn't show amusement at Jeanie Meeney's maiden name, but instead said, "You must've worked hard to fulfill your dreams."</p><p>"I did what I had to," she said quietly and took another sip.</p><p>"Ready to order?" the waiter asked, as he set garlic bread on the table.</p><p>Shirley was more amused than annoyed. They were the only customers at that hour and it wasn't like they'd just been taking up space. She asked Richie, "Do you want to just get spaghetti?"</p><p>"Sure, it's very good spaghetti."</p><p>By this point, it was clear that this late-night dinner wasn't about the food. She was a little hungry, having snacked at the Fillmore reunion. But really, the food was just rent for the space for wherever this conversation was headed.</p><p>Once the waiter went back in the kitchen, she asked, "Do you want to go Dutch?"</p><p>Richie set down the bottle he'd just lifted. "Would you think I was a sexist pig if I paid?"</p><p>"It would depend on your motive," she teased.</p><p>He didn't blush this time, missing her implication that he might expect her to put out if he bought her dinner. "I know you're an independent career woman, but you must have student debt."</p><p>"Some," she admitted and took a small bite of the still hot bread.</p><p>"And, well, I'm doing OK financially."</p><p>"Yes, I saw the car."</p><p>This time he blushed. He quietly asked, "Did you see the movie?"</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>"I’m not the kind of man<br/>Who tends to socialize<br/>I seem to lean on old familiar ways"</p><div class="center">
  <p>—Paul Simon</p>
</div><br/>"Brenda and Eddie were the<br/>Popular steadies<br/>And the king and the queen<br/>Of the prom"<div class="center">
  <p>—Billy Joel</p>
</div>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Not for the first time that evening, she seemed to regard him with amusement. "Yes, Richard, along with much of America, I saw <i>Community Collage</i>. I also read the book."</p><p>"What did you think?" If he was to address the elephant in the room, he would test the waters. (Mixing metaphors in a way that would make his editor tear her hair out.)</p><p>"Well, you know what they say."</p><p>"What's that?"</p><p>Shirley half smiled. "The book is always better than the movie."</p><p>What was it about this woman that made him blush so easily? He knew he had asked for it this time, but he had wanted to know for five years whether she knew what he had done in his most famous novel.</p><p>"You kicked off the Fifties nostalgia boom," she teased.</p><p>He grimaced. "I always thought that was Sha Na Na at Woodstock."</p><p><i>Community Collage</i> wasn't meant to be nostalgic. And it wasn't even set in the Fifties. The tagline for the movie was "What was done in sixty-one," sometimes with and sometimes without a question mark. But he knew its theme of lost innocence had been simplified for mass consumption in the movie which had, among other things, paid for his Pontiac, and even more so on the popular sitcom <i>Rock Around the Clock</i>.</p><p>"Why was Sheila thirty?" she asked quietly.</p><p>So she knew that part at least. "Well, Eddie was twenty, so a three-year age difference didn't seem big enough."</p><p>She looked like she wanted to ask him more, but then the waiter suddenly returned with the spaghetti, much sooner than Richie had been expecting.</p><p>After they thanked him and he disappeared into the kitchen again, they just ate and drank for awhile.</p><p>A few minutes later, Shirley remarked, "This is very good spaghetti."</p><p>Richie smiled and swallowed. "I thought you might like it."</p><p>Now she teased, "You never took me to dinner on any of our actual dates.  You didn't even buy me a soda at Arnold's."</p><p>This time he laughed as well as blushed. "No, I guess I didn't."</p><p>Their first date was a double date when he was sixteen and she was nineteen, in fifty-seven. Fonzie fixed them up to boost Richie's confidence. The most memorable part was his parents and Joanie walking in on her fussing over him as he lay on the living room floor after Shirley accidentally punched him in the jaw.</p><p>Their second "date" was eleven and a half months later.  She invited him over simply to seduce him into another double date, this time with Potsie instead of Fonzie for Laverne. Shirley aimed for the first prize of his and hers television sets in the Jefferson High dance contest, but she didn't come right out and say that. She led Richie on, and he happily fell for it. The victory dance was the third date.</p><p>Their wedding was sort of their fourth date. It was almost three years later and he was in college, dating Lori Beth but still free to have double dates with the Fonz. When a very overprotective farmer caught them with his two beautiful daughters, the only way out of a shotgun wedding seemed to be fake engagements. Laverne and Shirley were camping nearby and they obviously didn't mind deception. This led to another dance contest, this time with Fonzie and Richie as the prizes. The farmer still insisted on a shotgun wedding, and only the intervention of the girls' friends and Laverne's father saved Richie from a very difficult explanation to his steady girlfriend.</p><p>None of that was in his most famous novel.  Community-college boy Eddie Birmingham has an affair with a thirty-year-old nurse, Sheila O'Neal, but he becomes engaged to his steady girlfriend, Brenda Arnold, who is the kind of girl he can and does take home to his mother. In the movie adaptation by Gerard F. Callihan, the affair became flirtation and one long, bittersweet kiss goodbye.</p><p>"Sheila makes Edward a pasta dinner," Shirley now recalled.</p><p>"Oh God, that's right!" That was something Callihan added for humor.</p><p>"Laverne said you had mixed feelings about the script."</p><p>He'd seen Laverne and her family, and Squiggy, when he was out in L.A. in '73. She was a newly pregnant-for-the-third-time housewife, married to an upwardly mobile lawyer, but still the same mouthy, self-described Brooklyn broad.</p><p>After her tiny daughters were asleep, she exclaimed, "They're cuttin' the fling with the nurse? That was the steamiest smut I've read in a novel since <i>Peyton Place!"</i></p><p>Squiggy chimed in, "Boy, that Feeney dame really could kiss, couldn't she?"</p><p>Richie then told them, and a grinning Lee Levy, that he'd never done more than kiss Shirley, which made Laverne laugh and say, "I know, I used to read her diaries."</p><p>Squiggy said, "You was right about her being a hot little number though. When I finally bagged her after the last high school reunion, she lived up to both of our selective imaginations."</p><p>Laverne threw the old "Hi, Sailor" pillow at Squiggy (this was before Lee hired an interior decorator) and snapped, "It's been two years! Will you shut up about that already?"</p><p>Lee watched in amusement, like it was his favorite sitcom, while Richie blushed and tried not to envy Squiggy.</p><p>Richie now shrugged. "I understand, it's Hollywood. And they wanted to make Eddie more sympathetic."</p><p>"I like the complexity in the book, the duality. The way Sheila and Brenda are two sides of one woman."</p><p>Richie almost choked on the bite of garlic bread he'd just taken.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>"And I ain’t no fool for love songs<br/>That whisper in my ears"</p><div class="center">
  <p>—Paul Simon</p>
</div><br/>"Drop a dime in the box<br/>Play the song about New Orleans"<div class="center">
  <p>—Billy Joel</p>
</div>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Shirley's medical training immediately kicked in and she leapt out of her chair and raced to the other side of the table. She did what was not yet called the Heimlich maneuver, until Richie spat out the piece of garlic bread.</p><p>"Thank you," he gasped.</p><p>"You're welcome. And I'm sorry."</p><p>He shook his head, but carefully. "Not your fault."</p><p>The waiter poked his head out of the kitchen.  "Can I get you anything else?"</p><p>She let go of Richie.  "Water please."</p><p>The waiter nodded and disappeared again.</p><p>Before Shirley returned to her chair, she took a really good look around. The place looked a little like it had when Mr. DeFazio's girlfriend Veronica tried to run it, seventeen years ago, before the girls and their friends scared her off.  Checked tablecloths, candlelight, fine China, etc. And yet....</p><p>"You kept the jukebox!" she exclaimed when the waiter returned with a jug of water and two wineglasses.</p><p>He rolled his eyes.  "Yeah, when me and the wife bought the place in sixty-eight, it was more trouble than it was worth to haul that out of here."</p><p>So this was not just the waiter but the owner.  And it wasn't the man who bought the Pizza Bowl when Frank and Edna DeFazio moved out to sunny Southern California to run a fast-food franchise. By sixty-eight, Edna had filed for her sixth divorce and Shirley was married and pregnant in West Germany.</p><p>Richie's hazel eyes shone. "A jukebox?"</p><p>The owner, who looked about thirty, said, as he poured their water, "Yeah, it's just Fifties songs but some people like that. And it's only a dime."</p><p>Whatever Richie's mixed feelings about nostalgia, Shirley could see how much he still loved the music of their overlapping adolescence.  She smiled and said, "I'll see if they have Fats Domino."</p><p>"Blueberry Hill" was the obvious choice, but her eye fell on "Walking to New Orleans." It technically didn't come out in the Fifties, but she remembered hearing it in 1960, on this very jukebox, when she had no idea what the new decade had in store for any of them. It was a bittersweet song about love and loss, and at twenty-two she had felt very much a woman of the world, although she hadn't even left the Midwest yet. (Trips to New York, Canada, and Near Mexico would come in the next couple years.) New Orleans, a city she'd now been to a couple times since moving to Annandale, then was a place she felt she knew through music and movies.</p><p>At twenty-two, she'd had her heart broken a few times, including by the man who sang along to this song on the jukebox, as she stroked his dark, curly hair, but she was still a virgin and didn't understand men nearly as well as she thought.</p><p>She now put a dime in and pressed the right buttons.</p><p>Before Fats even started singing, Richie tapped her shoulder and asked, "May I have this dance?"</p><p>She nodded and they slipped into a slow dance like they'd been doing this for years.</p><p>Steve, her boyfriend in seventy-three, hadn't understood why she suddenly started quietly crying in the theater on their last date. Stephen was perfectly nice and generally easy to talk to, but she couldn't explain her complicated feelings about the surprise hit movie of the year, especially the slow-dance scene. Even if he'd read the book, he wouldn't have seen her in it.</p><p>Everyone who'd known Shirley well since at least the Early Sixties knew that Richie Cunningham based the nurse character on her, with some changes like her age and hair color, but with enough catchphrases and mannerisms to shine through.  Even the profession was a giveaway, as Shirley had always been interested in medicine, long before she pursued it.</p><p>Richie now murmured in her ear, not sweet nothings, or even "We never danced together on any of our actual dates," but "You and Fonzie are the only ones who figured out about Brenda."</p><p>She whispered, "I know. Laverne and everyone assumed Brenda is Lori Beth."</p><p>"There are things you two have in common of course, which I didn't see until I wrote the rough draft."</p><p>"Like the hair?"</p><p>"Yeah, and your personalities. Not identical, but, well, I guess I had a type when I was young, although I dated a lot of girls before Lori Beth."</p><p>Now she blushed, but she also felt guilty. "Does she know, about Eddie and his women?" She didn't know how else to put it.</p><p>"She knows I had a crush on you and Sheila was my fantasy of you. But, no, she thinks the sweet, smart steady girlfriend is just her."</p><p>"Oh, Richie, your marriage!"</p><p>The song was only two minutes long and it had just ended.  They let go and looked at each other.</p><p>"Shirley, no, my marriage was already on the rocks when I started that novel. Writing helped me sort out how I felt about the past."</p><p>She still felt that mixture of guilty and flattered. "You had a crush on me?"</p><p>"I wasn't pining away for you all this time, but you know.  There was always a what-if about us."</p><p>Not on her side, not at first, when he was just a cute high school boy. It was different four years later. "You're not the worst man I ever almost married."</p><p>He smiled. "Thanks. It's funny, Carmine objected, but he never proposed to you himself."</p><p>"Well, actually...." She blushed again.</p><p>"Let's finish our meal."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>"Now I sit by my window<br/>And I watch the cars<br/>I fear I’ll do some damage<br/>One fine day"<br/></p><div class="center">
  <p>—Paul Simon</p>
</div><br/>"They couldn't go back to the greasers<br/>The best they could do<br/>Was pick up their pieces<br/>We always knew they would<br/>Both find a way to get by"<div class="center">
  <p>—Billy Joel</p>
</div>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"So did you see each other after that weekend?"</p><p>She shook her head. "Well, not romantically. The next time I saw him in person was at our fifteen-year reunion the next summer, and he brought a girlfriend."</p><p>"Oh, wow."</p><p>"Yeah, and then I, um."</p><p>"Slept with Squiggy?"</p><p>She covered her face with her hands. "Oh God, he told you?"</p><p>"According to Laverne, he tells everybody, or used to anyway."</p><p>"Oh God!"</p><p>"Why are you more embarrassed about this than about Sheila?"</p><p>She lowered one hand to play with her seatbelt. "Well, Sheila isn't real, I mean not what she did with Eddie, and everyone knows that. And it was cleaned up for the movie anyway. But Squiggy." She sighed. "I don't regret sleeping with him. I just don't feel the need to shout it from the rooftops."</p><p>"Do you know why he boasted about it to so many people?"</p><p>"Oh, he probably thinks it says something about his prowess that he melted the ice queen."</p><p>"Maybe, but I think he also couldn't believe his luck in getting one night with you, and he had to say it out loud until it felt real."</p><p>She lowered her other hand and patted his denim sleeve. "Only you could be good-hearted enough to think the best of Andrew Squiggman."</p><p>"Well, I also think in my case, he was twisting the knife."</p><p>"Because he had your fantasy woman?"</p><p>"Well, yeah."</p><p>This time, they both blushed.  Then he looked out the side window and was glad he wasn't driving.</p><p>After they finished their meal and he paid, they went out to sit in his car. He didn't think he was drunk but he had been drinking. And he understood that there were things she wanted to say about Carmine that she didn't want the owner-waiter to hear.  So Richie put the top up on his convertible, rolled up the windows, and put the air conditioning on high and the radio on low.</p><p>She first told him about her one-night stand with Carmine Ragusa, six summers ago. She was ladylike enough to not go into detail physically, unlike Richie with a fictional affair.  But then she told him about the emotions it stirred up, when she was a widow with a toddler, still trying to sort out what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.</p><p>Richie watched the few cars out this late zip by, mostly groups of teens or couples out on dates. With "Chantilly Lace" faintly in the background, time continued to melt like a Dalian watch.</p><p>Shirley now quietly said, "Carmine and I still have unfinished business. I know this isn't really a date tonight, but I wouldn't be here with you if Carmine and I had settled anything. He was single and flirty at this reunion, and Lord knows we have history together. But there are some things I don't know how to resolve."</p><p>He looked at her again. "Like what?"</p><p>"Can I see pictures of your sons?"</p><p>That felt like an abrupt change of subject, but he was a proud father.  "Sure." He took out his wallet and flipped open to the photos.  "That's Richard Howard, 'Little Richie,' although he's almost a teenager, so we don't call him that anymore.  And Arthur Warren, Artie, is eleven.</p><p>"They're adorable!"</p><p>He decided not to mention that R.H. still blamed him for the divorce and was starting to act out now that he was going through puberty. "Thank you. Can I see Wally?" Fonzie had told him the name.</p><p>"Of course."  She reached into her purse and took out a tiny photo album.</p><p>He remembered Laverne observing that she was the one who liked to take pictures but Shirley was the one who liked to organize them. The Levy-DeFazio family album was a mess by seventy-three, in no chronological or other order. Laverne had to guess at the years based on the sizes of her daughters, the state of her husband's facial hair, and her own hemline and stage of pregnancy, if any.  "Shirl had all the Feeney family albums, and our vacation albums, and the Fabian album, photo album I mean, practically cross-indexed. She's always had that kind of anal-retentive brain. So I know that, along with being a lifelong animal nut, she'll make a great vet."</p><p>This miniature album Shirley now handed him was labeled "Walter Meeney, Jr." As he flipped through it, he saw her only child age from a red-faced, squalling baby to a freckled, quiet-looking boy of eight.</p><p>"He's at summer camp. He loves arts and crafts, and woodlore and horseback riding."</p><p>He handed the album back. "You must miss him."</p><p>"Yes, but, well, he lives with me. My heart broke a little for you when I saw that <i>People</i> magazine profile a couple years ago."</p><p>He shook his head. "Ah, yes, the lonely writer, who found fame and success but has lost his family. That was the issue with coverboy Kosmik Kosnowski, the rock stud who is unlucky in love."</p><p>To his surprise, she blushed. Fifteen years ago, the idea of Shirley Feeney having a crush on Lenny Kosnowski would've been ridiculous. But Richie had had thrice-divorced Jenny Piccalo shove a certain <i>Cosmo</i> centerfold in his face last year, and he knew that the tall guitarist now appealed to a wide range of women.</p><p>"Do you have a thing for Lenny?" he whispered.</p><p>"No, no, I just slept with him."</p><p>This surprised him more than her Squiggman encounter, and not just because Lenny was so famous now. "Wow! I always thought it was Laverne he had a thing for."</p><p>"It was.  It is."</p><p>"But she's married. Or was." Fonzie had told him she was getting a divorce.</p><p>"He tried to stay away from her, date other women."</p><p>"Including you?"</p><p>"Um, no, I'm afraid it was another one-night stand, my last."</p><p>"Oh." He felt disappointed, but he wasn't sure if it was because she used to sleep around or because she'd given it up.</p><p>"No one knows about it, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone."</p><p>"Of course.  Wait, Laverne doesn't know?"</p><p>"At the time, four years ago, Lenny wasn't famous, and Laverne seemed to be a contented housewife. I always meant to tell her, but I wanted it to be in person. But, well, obviously I've been very busy with veterinary college and motherhood, and it's not like Lenny and I were in love, although we're fond of each other. And obviously I'm not the only woman he's been with."</p><p>"Yeah, but, well, it's not the same thing, but when Lori Beth and I first got divorced, she went out with Ralph Malph a few times. It was nothing serious, but I still felt weird about it."</p><p>"Oh, I know what you mean. And over time, I realized that Laverne was developing feelings for Lenny, so that made it even harder to tell her, and to not tell her. I tried to tell her when I visited California a couple years ago but there was never a good moment.  And again, tonight, in the girls' locker room at the reunion. But she just thought I was trying to get her to admit her own feelings."</p><p>"So do you think they'll get together now?"</p><p>"Well, they left the reunion together, so I think they'll at least talk, but she brought her three little kids on this trip, so I don't know if they'll get anything settled."</p><p>He half-smiled. "You're lucky I'm a novelist instead of a gossip columnist."</p><p>She half-smiled back. "Oh, I don't know. Rona Barrett might find it interesting that 'Eddie' is parking with 'Sheila.' "</p><p>"Parking" had very specific and yet flexible connotations to their overlapping generations and different sexes. For a Fifties boy who was lucky enough to have access to a car, and they really were the first generation where most of them did, even if you had to share it, it was about taking a girl to a semi-private place, like Inspiration Point, and seeing how lucky you could get with her. It was more complicated for Fifties girls, especially complicated girls like Shirley. He didn't give it much thought at the time, but she was using what she was told, including by her mother, was her most precious asset, an intact hymen, and her own luck, to get a doctor husband. It had worked eventually, although the marriage hadn't lasted long, through no fault of her own.</p><p>Meanwhile, she had denied her own passion, and frustrated countless men, Richie among them. Her best friend, who started out as an everything-but girl, lost her virginity somewhere in her mid twenties, according to Fonzie, who gave her a bon voyage the night before the girls headed off to California in Lenny and Squiggy's ice cream truck. And a year after Shirley landed a doctor, Laverne, who had barely played by the rules, got a future lawyer husband.</p><p>It was the Late Sixties by then, and Richie knew from Ralph and other bachelor friends that the rules had changed. Richie had tried to duplicate his parents' successful marriage, finding a nice girl and having two sons as soon as possible. </p><p>(Never mind that Chuck had been banished by Howard Cunningham when the firstborn came out to him as homosexual, something that Richie hadn't understood at the time, beyond his mother's "It's something nice people don't talk about, Dear." Richie had to piece it together later as an adult.)</p><p>"I'm sorry," Shirley said. "Maybe I shouldn't joke about that."</p><p>"No, no, I was just thinking about the past."</p><p>"Well, it is the night for it."</p><p>"Yeah."</p><p>"You know, Richard, we have something unusual in common."</p><p>He had absolutely no idea where she was going now, but it was fascinating trying to follow her. "Yeah, what's that?"</p><p>"We both got married by proxy."</p><p>Richie burst out laughing and Shirley grinned, although it wasn't that funny if you thought about it. Richie had been serving in the Army, in Greenland. (He often felt like he'd dodged a bullet, pardon the expression, by getting out before he was sent to Vietnam.) He and Lori Beth had been going steady for three and a half years and they loved each other. (And, OK, she was maybe a little bit pregnant.)  So he married her with his best friend as his representative, like they were medieval royalty.</p><p>Meanwhile, Shirley dated Carmine and other men, until she fell for a medic who was going to ship out soon.  Even Walter Meeney's all-over rash couldn't delay their rushed wedding, although it impacted the wedding night she had saved herself for for so long. Still, she had conceived as soon as possible.</p><p>"I didn't know Walter terribly well before or after our wedding. Having him in a full-body cast while Laverne acted everything out didn't help. It made me feel on some level like my marriage wasn't real."</p><p>He nodded. He knew about her and Walter from the Fonz, with Laverne and Squiggy adding details later. And he saw the parallels now.  "I knew Lori Beth very well of course, but, yeah, it made our marriage feel, maybe not less real, but different than I always imagined."</p><p>"And even good boys started to question things in the Sixties."</p><p>She was quoting from a more serious interview than the one he gave to <i>People</i>.</p><p>He swallowed.  "Yeah."</p><p>Paul Anka quietly advised, "Put your head on my shoulder," and Shirley snuggled up to Richie.</p><p>He put his arm around her shoulders and asked, "Can we talk about our first couple dates?"</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>"But I would not be convicted<br/>By a jury of my peers"<br/></p><div class="center">
  <p>—Paul Simon</p>
</div><br/>"Things are okay with me these days<br/>Got a good job, got a good office<br/>Got a new wife, got a new life<br/>And the family's fine"<div class="center">
  <p>—Billy Joel</p>
</div>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Shirley left her head on Richie's shoulder, remembering how she had placed it there even before Fonzie introduced them. From the first, there was a cuteness, a sweetness, about Richie that made her want to cozy up about him. His hand on her shoulders was less familiar, but she'd liked the feel of his hands on her during the slow dance in the Spaghetti Bowl. And maybe she needed a break from meeting those earnest hazel eyes.</p><p>"Yes, Richard?" she murmured.</p><p>"It'd been only a year between them...."</p><p>She couldn't help teasing, "Eleven and a half months," remembering the precise aspiring journalist on her first sofa.</p><p>"Right.  But you seemed so different."</p><p>"Well, in the fall of fifty-seven, I had developed a sort of New York accent after living with Laverne for almost a year."  She had had to train herself out of it, because Mama mocked it on the phone. And Shirley realized that it stood in the way of her upwardly mobile ambitions. Her accent now was a blend of Midwestern and Californian, with touches of German, Virginian, and yes, New Yorker. Laverne's own accent had been modified by living in the Los Angeles area for over a decade, most of that time married to a Bostonian who'd served in Vietnam. On the Meeneys' visit to California a couple years ago, six-year-old Wally had marveled at how Auntie Laverne could pronounce "car" half a dozen ways, including her imitation of Shirley's Southern drawl: "Why, I do declare!  Lenny and Squiggy have runned away without a cah!"</p><p>"Well, yeah, I noticed that," Richie said, "but in general, you just seemed classier in the fall of fifty-eight. Still sexy, but in a more sophisticated way."</p><p>She'd never expected to have to make this admission, but better late than never. "Fonzie told us you needed a boost of confidence about girls. He wanted one of us to act easy without being easy. Laverne immediately volunteered, since that was second nature to her in the Fifties. Not that she was a tease, but she loved to make out, and sometimes guys thought that meant she'd go all the way."</p><p>"But she was Fonzie's date that night, and she was the one he thought of when we needed fake fiancées."</p><p>"Right. The two of them had been out before and he thought I'd be a better match for you, even if I wasn't really myself that night."</p><p>"So it was all an act? The fight in the ladies' room and kissing me?"</p><p>"The fight, yes. We thought if we seemed tougher than we were, not that we weren't tough in those days, Laverne especially, it would make you think we were wilder, and that might help you feel more confident."</p><p>"Actually, it made me a little scared of you. And then you socked me!"</p><p>"That really was an accident. And I kissed you because I wanted to."</p><p>"And then my parents and Joanie walked in."</p><p>She giggled and looked at him again. "I definitely didn't intend that. And I'm sorry our first kiss was like that."</p><p>"Our other kisses made up for it."</p><p>She of course had to kiss him then.  She felt like the whole evening had been building towards this, her time at her old school included. It wouldn't silence the echoes of the past, including their last kiss, on their third date, in a basement on this block. It wouldn't help her resolve things with Carmine or find a way to tell Laverne her secret about Lenny. It wouldn't even clear up their own what-if. But she had talked with him as she hadn't with anyone in a very long time, and she was physically attracted to him in a way that felt comfortable and natural, despite giggles and blushes.</p><p>She puckered up and moved her face slowly towards his. The hazel eyes widened in surprise and then the red eyelashes fluttered shut in anticipation. Her own eyes closed as her lips met his.</p><p>Soft lips, soft music on the radio. She felt young again, so young that she was a mature, sophisticated woman of the world at twenty, in the eyes of a virginal high school senior. And yet, they were also both in the second half of their thirties, with all their true experience.  It was with the hands of a man who had been in a relationship that began at the end of the Fifties and ended at the beginning of the Seventies that he stroked her bobbed hair and the most sensitive parts of her neck. And it was not as the tease who put her head on his shoulder and promised "anything but murder, Mister," but as the woman who didn't own her desire until after her blink-and-you-missed-it marriage, that she playfully measured the length of his hair and then caressed from his prominent Adam's apple to his pointed chin.</p><p>When the kiss broke, she stroked his upper lip with her fingertip and said, "You shaved off your mustache."</p><p>"Yeah, I got tired of being recognized everywhere, especially after the <i>People</i> profile."</p><p>"Too bad. I'm not as into facial hair as Laverne, but I wanted to kiss that poor, lonely writer with the mustache."</p><p>"I'll grow it back!"</p><p>She giggled and then he leaned into her. It was not the seventeen-year-old's lunge on her couch, which she'd finessed with empty promises for their next date, but a subtler if still eager move that showed he had dated some but not a lot since his divorce.  She silenced Laverne's voice in her head telling her, "Ain't you a little old to be neckin' in Red's Pontiac?" and blew in his ear.</p><p>It was as he was lavishing attention on her ear in a way that hinted he had mastered a certain chapter in her marriage manual that Dr. Walter Meeney had skipped, and Richie might happily break a particular Virginian law should he ever pay her a visit Down South, that her other ear caught the sound of someone tapping on her window.</p><p>"OK, Kids, break it up. It's after curfew."</p><p>Richie let go of her and muttered, "Crap, it's the cops!"</p><p>Shirley turned her head and peered out into the darkness.  Then she rolled down the window and said, "Norman? Norman Hughes?"</p><p>A round, friendly face appeared as a man squatted next to the Eldorado. ""Shirley? Shirley Feeney?"</p><p>"Shirley Meeney."</p><p>"Oh, right, Cookie said you were married for awhile."</p><p>"Cookie from the Angora Debs?" She'd been at the reunion that night.</p><p>"Yeah, her sister Gypsy is my second wife."</p><p>She was about to congratulate him, since she knew that his rebound marriage after Laverne dumped him had lasted a few years and one baby.  But Richie chuckled and murmured, "Cookie and Gypsy?" She wanted to scold him, since those names weren't any sillier than the Tuscadero sisters', or for that matter, Fonzie and Potsie.</p><p>"Wow, is that Richard Cunningham the writer?"</p><p>Shirley shot Richie a smile that said <i>You may as well grow back the mustache,</i> before turning back to Norman and saying, "Yes, it is."</p><p>"Sir, this is such an honor.  I've read all your novels. <i>Blueberry Hill</i> is my favorite."</p><p>"Well, thank you."</p><p>Shirley looked at Norman more carefully. "You're not in uniform."</p><p>"Well, no, Gypsy worried about me, so I quit the force. I have an office job now."</p><p>"Oh. But what are you doing stopping people from parking?"</p><p>"Well, I have a fifteen-year-old daughter and I worry about her and her friends.  Not that I'm patrolling the neighborhood, but I have to pick up my take-out from the Spaghetti Bowl. Gypsy is pregnant again and she's been craving lasagna."</p><p>"Congratulations."</p><p>"Thanks.  So, um, Mr. Cunningham, can I get your autograph?"</p><p>"Yeah, if you want."</p><p>It turned out that Norman didn't have anything to write on or with, but Richie, as a writer, carried a pen and notepad everywhere he went.</p><p>Shirley and Richie waited until Norman, clutching the scrap of paper, entered the Italian restaurant before they looked at each other and laughed.</p><p>"That was one of Laverne's ex-boyfriends."</p><p>"Ah."</p><p>"Um, it's getting late."</p><p>He nodded. "Do you want me to drive you to your hotel?"</p><p>That was a very good question.</p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>"Four in the morning<br/>Crapped out<br/>Yawning<br/>Longing my life away<br/>I’ll never worry<br/>Why should I?<br/>It’s all gonna fade"<br/></p><div class="center">
  <p>—Paul Simon</p>
</div><br/>"And that's all I heard about Brenda and Eddie<br/>Can't tell you more 'cause I told you already<br/>And here we are waving<br/>Brenda and Eddie goodbye"<div class="center">
  <p>—Billy Joel</p>
</div>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Are the stars out tonight? I don't know if it's cloudy or bright."</p><p>It was very late at night, very early in the morning. Richie lay awake in his boyhood bedroom, listening to a cassette with headphones.</p><p>He longed for Shirley in a different way than when he was younger. Yes, he was sexually frustrated, but now he knew what sex was like.</p><p>Still, he respected her gentle "Oh, Richard, I feel like I have to say no, because if it were to happen, it couldn't just be for one night. And I don't seem to be someone who can sleep around without consequences."</p><p>She'd told him on their way to her hotel how Carmine couldn't leave New York because of his success on Broadway, while she thought New York was a nice place to visit but she wouldn't want to live there.</p><p>Richie, as a writer, could live anywhere, but he didn't want to move more than driving distance from his kids, or Joanie and her kids, or his parents.</p><p>He and Shirley couldn't date, except for this one magical, random night. He kissed her cheek and said, "Hey, we got as far as I hoped we would in the old days. I got to neck with a very pretty girl, a lady doctor, so I can't complain."</p><p>"And I got to make out with a writer who sees me as a muse."</p><p>He knew he would use tonight in fiction someday, maybe not as obviously autobiographical, but these feelings and thoughts. And there are worse things than unanswered what-ifs.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>....</p>
</div><p>"I only have eyes for you."</p><p>It was four a.m. and Shirley would have to catch a flight home in a few hours, but she lay awake in her too empty bed, quietly singing to herself.</p><p>She knew she had made the right decision, but she couldn't help reliving the goodbye kiss to the Flamingos song on the Pontiac's radio. She obviously had eyes for other men, but there was something about the redhaired kid who wore a suit with a hanky, the college boy who kept his room neat, the man who became a husband and father before he'd fully grown up, the lonely writer with a mustache, the old friend who picked her up on the street, that got to her and probably always would.</p><p>She cared about him too much to just go for what one of the disappointed Bumpergaard sisters called a roll in the hay. They both deserved more, not necessarily with each other. She knew that they would have to actually date, and that would mean her moving back to the Great Lakes Region, since his roots here were much deeper than hers in what Lenny called the Shallow South.  She was just starting to set up her practice, so if she were going to relocate, now might be the time, especially since Wally was still little. She couldn't make a move like that for a man she'd only been out with a few times, even if he sort of was, like the has-been rock star London, her ex-husband, or at least one of her four grooms (five counting Laverne).</p><p>But maybe she was ready to make a big move for Carmine. Not to New York City, but someplace rural or suburban, where her son could run and play in the fresh air, where people kept horses as well as dogs and cats. And yet, close enough that she could have dates in the City. She'd call Carmine when she got home, see what he thought.</p><p>She would also call Lenny in a few days, find out how things had gone with Laverne, since she knew he would confess much more easily than Laverne would. And she'd find out if he had told Laverne about the Cumberland Gap encounter, or planned to. If not, she would, with his permission, tell Laverne herself. She didn't want that kind of secret to continue to separate her from her best friend, no matter where she ended up living.</p><p>As for Squiggy, hopefully he would shut up about <span class="u">their</span> encounter, if he hadn't already. She had declined his verbal invitation to his upcoming wedding ("If it won't kill you, Shirl, to see me blight my truth to anudder dame"), but she assumed that his finally settling down as a husband and father, not necessarily in that order, meant that he'd be less inclined to, as he'd once put it to Carmine in regards to Vivian McCafferty, screw and tell.  If not, a talk with Andrew also seemed likely.</p><p>But as she yawned and curled up on the hotel bed, she imagined her head on Richie's shoulder, a writer's hands stroking her not yet gray bob and the body she was finally learning to be at home in after almost forty years.</p>
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